Down the Rabbit Hole
Lately, I’ve been restoring a Dynaco ST 150 stereo amplifier. As my collection of classic vinyl recordings grows, I’ve assembled the ultimate 1970’s playback system. Coming of age in the mid-70’s, I coveted the then-new high-power solid state amplifiers.
I began to haunt flea markets and old book and record stores looking for vinyl treasures. I still had a decent turntable, and had recently upgraded the cartridge, but my phono preamp was at least 10 years old and not the best to begin with. It sounded ok, but the next logical upgrade was a more serious audiophile phono preamp.
A few months ago, I refurbished a Dynaco Stereo 120 audio amplifier for my studio, replacing a Stereo 80 amp that had been in service for years. There wasn’t anything wrong with the 80, but I wanted the increased power and the sound improvements that the 120 upgrades had provided in the studio.
Funny how things come full circle. When I was a young electronics experimenter, tube equipment was cheap and solid state devices were expensive and exotic. I could work with low-power diodes and transistors, but to accomplish anything with some power, tube circuits were king.